side, and examined me curiously.

'I believe you're right about yourself. You always were a luxurious
beggar. But that's not where it catches me.'

We sat and smoked and talked of other things for an hour, and then
turned in. As I was dropping off I was roused by Graeme's voice--

'Are you going to the preparatory service on Friday night?'

'Don't know,' I replied rather sleepily.

'I say, do you remember the preparatory service at home?' There was
something in his voice that set me wide awake.

'Yes. Rather terrific, wasn't it? But I always felt better after it,' I
replied.

'To me'--he was sitting up in bed now--'to me it was like a call to
arms, or rather like a call for a forlorn hope. None but volunteers
wanted. Do you remember the thrill in the old governor's voice as he
dared any but the right stuff to come on?'

'We'll go in on Friday night,' I said.

And so we did. Sandy took a load of men with his team, and Graeme and I
drove in the light sleigh.

The meeting was in the church, and over a hundred men were present.
There was some singing of familiar hymns at first, and then Mr. Craig
read the same story as we had heard in the stable, that most perfect of
all parables, the Prodigal Son. Baptiste nudged Sandy in delight,
and whispered something, but Sandy held his face so absolutely
expressionless that Graeme was moved to say--

'Look at Sandy! Did you ever see such a graven image? Something has hit
him hard.'

The men were held fast by the story. The voice of the reader, low,
earnest, and thrilling with the tender pathos of the tale, carried the
words to our hearts, while a glance, a gesture, a movement of the body
gave us the vision of it all as he was seeing it.

Then, in simplest of words, he told us what the story meant, holding us
the while with eyes, and voice, and gesture. He compelled us scorn the
gay, heartless selfishness of the young fool setting forth so jauntily
from the broken home; he moved our pity and our sympathy for the
young profligate, who, broken and deserted, had still pluck enough to
determine to work his way back, and who, in utter desperation, at last
gave it up; and then he showed us the homecoming--the ragged, heart-sick
tramp, with hesitating steps, stumbling along the dusty road, and then
the rush of the old father, his garments fluttering, and his voice heard
in broken cries. I see and hear it all now, whenever the words are read.

He announced the hymn, 'Just as